simple little things

 

Tea with Farmer Jones.

"My lawn mower is broken," says I.

"What's wrong with it?" wonders he.

"It froze during the winter and the engine's as dead as the dodo," explaineth I.

"You'll have to get it repaired," sez he.

"I've left it in the sunshine today," sez I, "in the hope that the engine will warm up and start for me."

"Ha, ha, ha." remarks Farmer Jones.

"You don't think it'll work?" questioneth I.

"No chance," says he.

I bless myself and say a Hail Mary prayer.

"What are you doing?" enquires the man of the soil.

"I'm asking the Blessed Virgin to intercede for me so that the lawn mower will start," says I.

Farmer Jones is a man of faith but this did not seem to him to be a sensible application of it.

"Ha, ha, ha," he said again.

And this evening after I got home, I rang him and got his answering machine.

The message I left was the sound of a lawn mower engine roaring heartily about the truth of the universe.